PM Sheikh Hasina stresses the need for PPP to accelerate country's development

"We want to speed up the pace of development for rapid uplift the country...but it is not possible for the government alone, there is also need for PPP initiatives," she said.

The Premier expressed this view while chairing the 1st Board of Governors meeting of the PPP Authority held at the Prime Minister's Office here on Thursday morning.

PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters after the meeting.

Sheikh Hasina said that keeping the PPP concept in mind, the development activities of the country would have to be carried forward to "yield" more outcomes from the uplift.

In this connection, Sheikh Hasina cited that the private sector has been playing a "key role" in the development of South Korea.

Highlighting the bright prospects of PPP in the country, the Prime Minister said so far many projects have been implemented under the PPP and asked the authorities concerned to always look for country's benefits while moving ahead with the PPP projects.

It was informed at the meeting that 43 projects of various sectors are in the pipeline of Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative which are expected to draw some $14 billion investment for implementation of those projects in a bid to expedite the development of the country.

The meeting reviewed the implementation progress of PPP activities of the country for the last couple of years. It was also informed about the development of the PPP projects, selecting private partners, possible time for signing the final agreements and the possible amount of overall investment.

The meeting was apprised that the final agreement of six projects has been signed, while feasibility studies for 18 projects have been completed with Tk 77 crore from the PPP technical fund which is expected to attract around Tk 10,000 crore investment in the country.

Besides, some 11 projects are at the final stage of selecting private partners which are expected to draw investment of around $ one billion while 10 projects are at the stage of feasibility study with an expected investment of around $ 5 billion.

The meeting decided that as per the directives of the relevant laws, the Prime Minister, as the chairperson of the Board of Governors of the PPP Authority, would look after the policy issues, while the PM's Principal Secretary, as the chairman of the PPP Authority, would look after the issues on removing the obstacles to project implementation.

The Chief Executive Officer of the PPP Authority would look after the operational aspects.

The Press Secretary said that the meeting discussed the existing and amended organogram of PPP Authority and made a proposal for giving approval to the proposed organogram.

Besides, a guideline was placed before the meeting for selecting the private partners in line with the now-defunct "PPP Policy" since selecting private partner is one of the major and important operations of PPP.

Another guideline was placed before the meeting for identifying and processing the "unsolicited proposals" since there is a scope for receiving the "unsolicited proposals" in the PPP alongside the proposals from government organizations.

This guideline has already been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. According to the PPP Act, the Board of Governors has been entrusted with the responsibility to approve rules, regulations and guidelines of the PPP Authority.

Once the guideline is approved, it would be easier to identify and process the "unsolicited proposals" and thus raise the investment in such nature of projects.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Housing and Public Works Minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, Railways Minister Muzibul Haque, State Minister for Finance and Planning MA Mannan and State Minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak, among others, attended the meeting.

The Bangladesh Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act, 2015 was enacted and gazetted on September 16, 2015, and as per the directives of the law, the PPP Authority was established.